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Free Trade Agreements are Destroying American Jobs
The Obama administration, along with the Republicans in Congress, are pushing through a free trade agreement that will destroy American jobs just as NAFTA did. In fact, the anti-worker Republican Party has been congratulatory towards the President for his involvement: *"Republican leaders offered qualified praise to President Barack Obama today after he sent up a trio of trade bills that could win Congressional approval before the end of the month.Both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) thanked the president for submitting the pending free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea while criticizing him for not moving sooner." *This administration is even ignoring violation of worker rights in Columbia so that the free trade agreement can get passed into law: ::: "A new study challenges claims from the administration of President Barack Obama that Colombia is making important strides in bringing to justice killers of labor activists and so deserves U.S. congressional approval of a long-stalled free trade pact." Congressman Dennis Kucinich denounces FTAs: *"Today President Obama submitted three free trade agreements to Congress based on the flawed North-American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) model that has been devastating to our economy, American workers and to labor and environmental standards. Hundreds of thousands of American jobs have been displaced and outsourced as a result of our pursuit of trade policies which are adverse to the economic interests of the American people." *"The Korea-U.S. and U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreements are expected to increase our trade deficit by over $16 billion and result in the displacement or loss of over 200,000 jobs. This is on top of the over 2 million American jobs that have been displaced or eliminated over the past ten years as a result of our increased trade deficit with China." TPP Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): "NAFTA on Steroids" *As in NAFTA, corporations could sue nations or even states like Oregon or Washington for having laws that potentially could harm their profits. The lawsuits go to three-person tribunals typically made up of corporate lawyers, who would decide the case – without any transparency or chance for appeal. Lori Wallach of Public Citizen, a leading opponent of TPP, called this a “corporate kangaroo court” and emphasized, as others have, that TPP is “NAFTA on steroids.” TPP is worse than NAFTA: *The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal from hell. It’s a stealth corporate coup d’etat. It’s a giveaway to banksters. It’s a global neoliberal ripoff. It’s a business empowering Trojan horse. It’s a freedom and ecosystem destroying nightmare. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) calls it “a secretive, multi-national trade agreement that threatens to extend restrictive intellectual property (IP) laws across the globe and rewrite international rules on its enforcement.” *For those who have lost jobs to NAFTA, a two-decade-old trade pact that has cost over 5 million manufacturing jobs as well as electrical, retooling, and other jobs that supported them, and 45,000 U.S. manufacturing facilities that likely will never return, the current version entitled the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)has been called “NAFTA on steroids”. *While the Obama Administration appears to be growing ever-more-limp domestically, the president is still making a vigorous international push that has the potential to shift economic power dynamics, rewrite intellectual property laws, establish new labor and environmental regulations, and reduce the authority of Congress. And, the White House hopes to have all this sorted out by the end of this year. Opposition to deal coming from Left and Right: : For those who havelost jobs to NAFTA, a two-decade-old trade pact that has cost over 5 million manufacturing jobs as well as electrical, retooling, and other jobs that supported them, and 45,000 U.S. manufacturing facilities that likely will never return, the current version entitled the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)has been called “NAFTA on steroids”. : An increasing number of liberals are aligning themselves with Tea Party members in a strange right-left coalition to voice concern over the Obama Administration’s heavy-handed push to at least 11 other countries, mostly in the Pacific rim, for a binding international governance system that will have the practical effect of circumventing actual legislation on issues that extend far beyond trade issues. Of the 29 chapters in negotiation, which has been ongoing for over three years now, only five deal with trade. Non-trade issues being proffered in secret negotiating texts include government procurement, including “buy American” and “buy local” laws, intellectual property, financial services, food standards, labor, environmental and drug patent provisions. 2013 Democrats in Congress are standing up to Obama's sellout *Congressional Democrats have often been frustrated by his lack of attention to their concerns, but they've been especially disturbed lately that in his grand pivot to Asia and push for a 12-nation trade pact dubbed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, they and the rest of Congress largely have been cut out of negotiations.... As a result, many Democrats fear the actual terms of the deal do not reflect traditional Democratic Party policy priorities. *Democrats in the House and Senate have complained for years about the secrecy standards the Obama administration has applied to the TPP, forcing members to jump over hurdles to see negotiation texts, and blocking staffer involvement. In 2012, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) complained that corporate lobbyists were given easy access while his office was being stymied, and even introduced protest legislation requiring more congressional input. *And most Democrats don't think the pending TPP deal addresses numerous labor, environmental and other issues adequately. Like NAFTA, the TPP would empower foreign corporations to directly challenge the laws and regulations of a country before an international tribunal. Under other trade frameworks, like the World Trade Organization treaties, only nations themselves are permitted to bring trade cases before an international arbiter, meaning companies must first win support from a government before attacking a law. Exxon Mobil, Dow Chemical, Eli Lilly and other corporations have used NAFTA to attempt to overturn Canadian regulations regarding offshore oil drilling, fracking, pesticides, drug patents and other issues. *U.S. participation in a final TPP agreement will only happen if President Obama is able to get Trade Promotion (or fast-track) Authority from Congress. ...groups opposed to the TPP -- and there are many, including 151 Democrats in the House of Representatives who complain about inadequate consultation by the White House -- will have no qualms about shooting down Trade Promotion Authority to prevent the agreement’s passage. TPP is being done in secret and through deception: * "As we've discussed in the past ITAC 15 is a committee of high powered corporate representatives who are basically the only ones with full access to the text of the intellectual property chapter of the TPP. Those on ITAC 15 are allowed to see the latest text by logging into a system from the comfort of their desks. If Congress wants to see it? No luck. Members of Congress are allowed only to visit the USTR offices, where they'll be shown a copy of the document in a sealed room. They're not allowed to bring staff (such as the experts who would understand this stuff). They're not allowed to take notes or make any copies. Basically, the corporate interests have a lot more oversight over the whole process than Congress does." (source) *With the introduction of fast track authority (also known as "trade promotion authority") in Congress, by which Congress abdicates its constitutionally-granted sole power to regulate foreign commerce, the USTR (which gains that power) is out in force, spreading all sorts of lies about what this means. It's not exactly encouraging when the organization that has been hiding all the details of the TPP agreement for years is now trying to push it forward by directly lying to the American public. It's almost as if the USTR can't be honest or people might realize that it's spent the last few years pushing forward on an agreement designed to prop up old legacy businesses at the expense of the public and new innovators. (source) Obama is betraying his supporters by pushing for TPP: * U.S. president Barack Obama’s top Asia adviser has said the president’s request for trade promotion authority shows the administration’s goal is to complete a major trade pact with Asia this year. : “We are confident we can and we will get it done,” Evan Medeiros, senior director for Asia at the U.S. National Security Council, said recently when asked about the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  : “The president made very clear last night that TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) and TPP is now a top presidential priority and now is the time to get it done,” he said, referring to Obama’s Jan. 20 state of the union address. (source) 